New York, NY: A $20 million settlement has been agreed in the consumer fraud class action lawsuit pending against Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH' MacMillan unit, which alleged the publisher conspired with Apple Inc, and other US publishers to fix prices of electronic books, or ebooks.

The settlement resolves the allegations brought in the consumer fraud lawsuit as well as a lawsuit brought by several US states. According to a report by Bloomberg, MacMillan will pay an additional $3 million in legal costs to the states that sued and $2.5 million to the lawyers for the consumers in the class-action case.

The case is In re Electronic Books Antitrust Litigation, 11-md-02293, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). The Justice Department and the other states led by Texas alleged publishers conspired with Apple in 2010 to undermine Amazon' dominance in the e-books market.

Legal Help

If you have a similar problem and would like to be contacted by a lawyer at no cost or obligation, please fill in our form.

Are you the defendant or a subject matter expert on this topic with an opposing viewpoint? We'd love to hear your comments here as well, or if you'd like to contact us for an interview please submit your details here.